Recently, as a freezing means of foods, liquid freezing with liquid (brine) as a freezing medium has increasingly been used, and with this liquid freezing, the temperature zone of maximum ice crystal formation (approx. 0 to −5° C.) in which ice crystals are formed can be passed through as fast as possible through immersion of foods in liquid (ethanol solution and the like) at temperatures from −20 to −35° C., for example, and thus foods can be frozen with little cellular destruction by ice crystals upon freezing.
As a freezing apparatus adopting such liquid freezing, for example, patent document 1 discloses a conveyor type freezing apparatus comprising a freezing tank filled with liquid at temperatures below 0° C., a conveyor for taking foods out to the atmosphere after the foods are immersed and frozen in the freezing tank and a blower disposed on the downstream of the conveyor and removing alcohol remaining in the foods having been immersed in alcohol in the freezing tank.